Category: LiveJournal

There is a Luddite in Me after all…

So while I was on a walk this afternoon (it was sunny and warmish – very pleasant for a walk), I saw a lady in her car waiting at a stop sign who decides, while waiting, to phone someone on her cell phone. And I got to thinking about how I prefer not to be “jacked in” to society all the time like so many people who use their phones 24/7. And that got me to thinking other tech that I haven’t embraced.

The big one that I pondered while continuing my walk, was the Skype/videophone bug that’s hit a large number of folks (including my dear chums, elsaf and judiang). Yeah, I thought it was pretty cool that I could defend my thesis via Skype, but using it to chat with my friends isn’t as much fun to me as AIM or the equivalent. The novelty of getting to see them (and their cute pets) lasts about 2 minutes into the call, and then I’m ready to return to text.

With text chatting, you can leave the room for a bit (nature loves to call when you want to chat with friends) and not miss any of the conversation since it’s there on the screen. With text chatting, you don’t have to be dressed. With text chatting, you don’t slow your laptop down to a crawl. Unless you are using headphones, you can’t really listen to music or TV when video chatting. And the part I like the least, you have to hear what people are saying. I dislike relying on my hearing to stay in conversation. (When I’m chatting in person, I have visual context clues to help.) Chatting is now getting more like phone calls, and I just don’t care for phone calls. (Still, friends are worth phone calls, as are immediate family. I hate all other phone calls.)

So the communicators and video phones from sci fi are here, but I really would have preferred if transporters and flying cars would have made it instead. Until one of these two transport systems come along, however, my best way to “see” my friends is with using Skype (or *sigh* AIM), so that’s how I’ll do it. I’m willing to put on my clothes (and my accessory kittens) and chat with the girls if that’s what they want to do. 🙂

The State of Me

A quick update to spout the following:

  • The 2011 Chili Competition was Saturday. I decided not to enter (I won last year) and instead talked mom into entering. There were 9 competition chilis to pick from – wow! Usually I have some of Jacki’s non-competition white chili that she brings each year, but I was too full from the competition. They were all yummy. But another member of the second generation won this year – Emily, Gary & Marcia’s daughter. You go gurl! 🙂

  • Went to the baby shower for my cousin’s step daughter on Sunday. It was a nice 2-hour little gathering. Mom won the memory competition (you go gurl!) and we didn’t have to eat babyfood. The cake was very yummy, too!

  • The juniors were having a special fundraiser at Culvers last night where they received part of the evening proceeds. And, well, their wall-eye is back. It was excellent (best I’ve had from them) and hopefully will sate my fried fish desire for some time.

  • And some of you are probably wondering “Um, Trina, aren’t you doing Weight Watchers?” Alas yes! This was not a good weekend. I’ve used up my bucket points (last night’s Culvers meal was 30 points – eep!) for the week and today I actually stayed to my daily 33 points. Shut up tummy, you can’t be hungry!

  • My evenings have been spent with Lynda and my cats in the library comfy chair. I’ve been doing lynda.com training on PHP (the basics, to start with) and learning a lot. It’s made me jealous of a newer laptop, but thankfully Walmart was sold out of the $428 one I’d been eying.

  • Lucy and I are currently in the library. I’ve got XAMPP on my 1GB flash drive and will be continuing my lynda.com training as soon as I finish this. Yay for learning! Yay for 1-year subscription to lynda.com!

    • So that’s the State of Me for now.

Dicks Update

Since I last posted about my quandary on which Detective TV series to watch, I’ve managed to watch ’em all.

I started by freebasing on seasons 7 and 8 of Monk. It was great to finally get some closure on the whole Trudy (Monk’s deceased wife) mystery. They did a great job on tying up any loose ends by the last episode. It will be fun revisiting the series again one of these days.

Turns out the batch of Columbo stories had two of my favorites and another ep I’ve always regarded highly. My favorite story will be in the final batch (I just love “Columbo: Undercover”), but this batch had the delightful (and sad) story written by Peter Falk: “It’s All in the Game”. This one had Faye Dunaway and Claudia Christian as the conspirators, with Dunaway making a play for Columbo and Columbo seeming to play the game. Only the second time where he lets someone off (Christian, not Dunaway). The other episode from the batch that’s a favorite is “No Time to Die” which is remarkable for not actually having a murder in it. Instead, Columbo and his nephew have to race to clock to find out who kidnapped his nephew’s brand new bride.

I’d also mentioned that I’ve been rereading my Campion novels. So now that I’m done with watching those other mystery series, I’m revisiting the Peter Davison series now. Watching Mystery Mile right now and I’m quite impressed with the translation from the novel to the TV version. (Currently rereading Police at the Funeral and I remember that story very well.)

Oh, and Moon over Soho, the sequel to Midnight Riot (both by Ben Aaronovitch) is now out in the US, so I’ve been reading that each night. Enjoying it much as I did the first book.

The Februaries – not too bad this year!

Well, February decided it needed to give us one more storm before giving way to March. Yesterday we had no school due to the freezing rain and snow of Thursday night/Friday morning. So yay for the day off, but boo for winter sticking its tongue out at us again.

We actually had school last Monday to make up one of our snow days so far, and were apparently the only school in the county who met on Prez Day. But thanks to yesterday’s storm, we got a 3-day weekend in February anyhoo. 🙂

Usually February is my bluest month. But this Feb wasn’t as bad as the past couple ones have been. I even managed to go somewhere for a weekend! Usually when I make weekend plans for Feb, I wind up getting sick, or having piss-poor weather to drive through, or just wind up not being in the mood to socialize. But last weekend, I headed north to visit elsaf and spend a couple of days with her and judiang.

The original plan was to stay till Monday, but the rescheduled school day put paid to that idea. So instead I drove up Friday and left on Sunday. I had hoped to stay until after lunch on Sunday, but Michigan decided it wanted a February snow storm, and I timed the departure to give me the best weather for the drive down. I left at noon and only got a bit of snow in Toledo and a small amount of sleet in Findlay (which I mostly missed by eating lunch in Findlay).

Our one full day together allowed us to have lunch at Uncle Harry’s deli (mmmm, matzo ball soup and sauerkraut sandwich! – it was a vegetarian Reuben, so basically a sauerkraut sandwich and it was very yummy!) and see The King’s Speech. We all agreed it was an excellent film. That evening, Elsa christened her kitchen proper (our main reason for the visit) by cooking us and her bro & sil some lamb shanks, mashed potatoes, asparagus, and pear halves cooked in Merlot and served with ice cream. Excellent meal and actually not too bad for Weight Watchers Points (as best as I could determine).

Anyway, March starts this week, which means that Winter still isn’t over and could dish us out other days off if it so decides. But we’re even closer to Spring (and Spring Break for that matter), which is a very good thing indeed.

A Good Time for Dicks & Other Things (wait a second…)

I know, I know, you think I’m talking about Terrance Dicks in that title. But no, that’s not what I’m talking about.

This has been my week for reacquainting myself with my favorite Detectives. Last weekend I started rereading my collection of Albert Campion novels. This week, the latest DVD set of Columbo movies came out. Then I got back into watching Monk, where I’d last left off near the end of season 6. So I finally got around to ordering seasons 7 & 8. And to top it all off, The Doctor Who TV Movie finally came out on DVD this week in the US.

So of course, on Thursday, I received two packages in the mail. I knew one was one of the two seasons of Monk, and suspected the other of being Columbo and Midnight Riot (a mystery/sci fi novel by Ben Aaronovitch) which I’d ordered together. I decided on the walk home that if it were season 7 of Monk, I’d start watching it, but if it were season 8, I’d watch Columbo first.

It turned out that Amazon combined two of my orders together (probably to save themselves the shipping costs, since I always go freebie when I can) and the package ALSO had the TVM! Well, Sylv trumps all, so I watched the TVM with Sylv & Paul commentary first. And then have been freebasing season 7 of Monk ever since. (I watched 4 eps today. Might watch another after some computer time.) It helps that the latest Columbo batch has only one story that I really love (it’s the one written by Peter Falk, of all things…) The last batch will have quite a few gems, including my favorite story of all, Columbo Undercover. (It’s the only Columbo where no one is murdered.)

Midnight Riot, BTW, was a fun read and I’ll be getting Ben’s second book, Moon Over Soho when it comes out. I wound up reading for almost 4 hours straight last night to finish the book. I love freebasing on books too, apparently. 🙂 Hope he gets some more novels out there for my enjoyment. 😉 (The Also People by Ben A has been in my top 3 Doctor Who books list since I first read it. The other two are Left-Handed Hummingbird and, hey, a book by Terrance Dicks: Timewyrm: Exodus. Maybe I was writing about Terrance Dicks in my title after all!)

In other news, I spent my birthday money from the folks and my sisters on a Kitchen Aid mixer, which arrived early this week. And today I finally used it – to make bread! Yay! I include a photo for your disbelievers!


My first loaves of bread and my new mixer!

I made honey whole wheat bread from St. Marten’s Table (Amy got me their cookbook this Christmas. Alas, the restaurant is no longer in business.) It’s pretty tasty and the smell is (as all bread) WONDERFUL. For supper I had a sandwich of the bread, Black Forest ham, Havarti cheese, lettuce, and baba ganoush. Very tasty! (It’s about 8 points, but I think it’s worth it.)

Oh yeah, points… We decided to try Weight Watchers at work and I figured “what the hell…” We started Thursday, though I actually started keeping track on Friday. Been dipping into my extra points bucket this weekend, but I’ll probably do OK. I’ll be interested to see if I lose any weight over the 12 week period.

Been having some quality parental time of late as well. Had dinner with the folks on Thursday (we went to Club 55 where I had ravioli stuffed with smoked artichoke hearts – yum!) and then yesterday was Hoity Toity Grocery Day. After a lunch at First Watch (a breakfast & lunch joint) we shopped at Trader Joe’s, and then on the way home stopped at the ginormous Kroger in Englewood that has everything from an olive bar to a sushi bar. (It’s where I got my baba ganoush.)

Today I did laundry and baked bread. Those two go well together. 🙂 Oh yeah, and watched several episodes of Monk. 3 good things that go good together!

Photos of another time…

One of the projects I’ve been doing these days when I’ve been unable to go into work (basically, we went in Monday and that was it for the week) is scanning in negatives from the Bad Old Days when I had to use film to take photographs.

A couple of years ago dad and I co-purchased a nice slide/negative scanner (plustek OpticFilm 7200) and a staticmaster brush (with polonium!) so that we could each scan in our slides & film negatives. I had it for awhile and barely did anything with it, so then I let dad use it and he pretty much scanned everything that he wanted to. So I decided to give it another go, starting with my 1998 trip to Australia & New Zealand. I’ve now got 5 of the 14 (!!!) rolls scanned, and have 120 photos thus far. Alas, I’m disappointed that the images aren’t as crisp as I’ve gotten used to with today’s goof proof digital cameras. But I’ve found a few photos that I really like so far.

My favorite so far is an odd little shot. It’s from Sydney Harbor and isn’t a typical tourist shot. But I loved the play of the colors. I fiddled about with Photoshop to see if I could exaggerate the colors some, so I’ll let you decide if I’m just odd, or if you, too, think it’s a nifty little shot.


Seagulls at Sydney Harbor.

I decided to include a shot of me sitting in front of Mrs Macquarie’s Road, just for grins. One of the few shots of me in all of the rolls, thankfully. 🙂


Me and Mrs Macquarie’s Road.

I’ve included two others as well.


A sailboat at the harbor.


Sydney at night.

Yet Another Weather Post

Ah, the joy of winter means loads of Internet posts about the weather. And this one is no different.

Well, yesterday the Ick did indeed come. We wound up with about half an inch of ice on the ground. Then last night, the winds came up strong and blew all of the ice off the trees in front of my house. Blew it all at my house. I woke up around 3am thinking the kitties were body slamming each other on the floor (yes, they do that from time to time), but no kitties were to be found. (They were both sitting quietly in the living room). Then I realized all the ruckus was being caused by ice slamming against the front of my house.

This morning, I saw lots of little ice shards on my front porch & front lawn. Heh. (And oddly enough, no ice on the tree branches.) Thankfully, power has been on continuously (despite a few flickers) and I only lost Internet late last night and it returned late this morning.

I managed to get all of my grading done that I had brought home, though I had forgotten to bring my gradebook home. Thankfully, I was able to log onto Progress Book and enter the grades directly into that. I love living in the 21st Century.

We’ve already gotten the call that we have no school again tomorrow. So yay, another day off. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get to finishing my application for Advance College Project – a program whereby I’d be teaching chemistry to juniors, and they’d be able to get college credit for it (from Indiana University). I think it sounds exciting and could be a great opportunity for our students. Here’s hoping I get the job!

The Calm Before the Storm

Today was a sunny albeit chilly day. Although the walk into work this morning was a bit severe (even with corduroy pants – I was regretting not wearing long underwear as I turned the last block), the walk home was rather pleasant.

But tomorrow, it may all be icky. The forecast tonight is 100% chance of icky, tomorrow, 80% chance of icky, followed by tomorrow night 100% chance of icky changing to snow (or rain). We are currently in a Winter Storm Warning (it was a Watch all day today and has just been upgraded to Warning) and one of the local networks is saying this may be the Winter Storm of the Season!!!!oneone!!!

Although I’ll believe that when I see it, I am a bit concerned about the chance of power outages. I have my cell phone and iPod charged up. I should do the same with my netbook. (OK, it’s plugged in now.) My flashlight is charged and I have loads of candles (all nice & smelly candles). Oh, and I know where all my blankets are. I’ve also warned the cats, but they could care less.

If the weather is only half of what they’re promising, we likely won’t have school the next two days. And we’ve used up our 3 alloted calamity days for the year (the Friday after my last LJ post was another snow day), so any we miss now, we make up at the end. That isn’t a big issue like it was last year. We don’t have to be out of the school building by a certain date. And we now have air conditioning. So I ain’t worried about that.

The wonderful coincidence about all of this is that it was February 1st or 2nd when I broke my arm 12 years ago – by slipping on the ice on my way into work. So I have no desire to go into work if there’s any ice on the ground. No sense celebrating the anniversary with a new break, eh? 😉

Anyhoo, for those of you also encountering this latest winter storm, or for those of you with other exciting weather issues, keep warm (or for you antipodeans, keep cool), keep safe, and try not to slip on the ice!

Ice, Ice, Baby…

Surprise! Fog + freezing drizzle + temperature of 30°F = school is closed! The 2-hour delay call arrived a little after 5am today, so I happily (OK, groggily) turned off alarm A and turned on alarm B to get another hour of sleep. But then the closure call came at 8am, which is a bit later than usual for a close. I suspect the superintendent was hoping it would clear up in time, but the “freezing rain” warning lasts till 10am and the sun isn’t up enough yet to start undoing the damage.

So happily, the power is still on, I’m up and hair is washed, and I now have a day off ahead of me. Calamity Days are often the best days off since you don’t already have it full of plans like weekend days or vacation days. (And we poor teachers didn’t get a day off on Monday. Still, the work day was pretty productive.)

I’ll probably play some World of Warcrack (it’s been taking over my life again. I should probably stop playing when my current 60-day card expires later this month) but I also hope to get a few other things done. Book inventory? Photo organization? I’m sure I’ll think of something. 🙂 And when the weather clears up some, I need to get ’round to the folks’ to help papa with a Pinnacle Studios question (no idea if I’ll know the answer).

Reading Overview for 2010

Since 2001, I’ve been keeping track of books which I have read (but not reread – that would be too much work!) For 2010, I wound up reading 61 books, which is lower than I had hoped I would (64 is the most since I started this record-keeping) but still on the upper level of yearly scores.

One of the things that probably took a bit away from my reading was that I was rereading the entire Vorkosigan saga by Lois McMaster Bujold in anticipation of Cryoburn coming out. It was my first time rereading and I almost got the books in the right order (messed one up – whoops!) I enjoyed the reread as much as the initial read, and then capped it all off with Cryoburn, which continued the excellence.

This year had me discovering two wonderful trilogies: the Millennium Trilogy (by Stieg Larsson) and the Hunger Games Trilogy (by Suzanne Collins). Lisbet and Katniss are both women who kick ass (and are on fire, heh) and it was fun getting to read about their adventures.

The year started with me reading the books for my Masters thesis, so I guess I can blame the thesis for not getting more than 61 books read. Heh. But despite the required reading and writing, I got a few classics read, including Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson) and The Time Machine (HG Wells). I didn’t get any new Dickens read, but I intend to rectify that this year.

Other notables were the discovery of Poppie Z Brite’s foodie books, Liquor and Prime. I bought the rest which I’ll probably get read this year. Thanks to gregmce for recommending her and for recommending The City and the City by China Mieville.

Chemistry got a good showing this year in popular nonfiction. The Poisoner’s Handbook (Deborah Blum) was excellent and both dad and I finished it while we were visiting my sister this summer. I got about half of The Disappearing Spoon (Sam Kean) read before I had to return the book to the library. But both of those books will be going into my collection when they become paperbacks.

I’ve noticed that many of the books that I read this year came recommended by friends IRL and virtual – thank you for your recs and keep ’em coming! I’m now using the library again (thanks to my Masters program and being able to order books online) and can expand past the books in my own library. Still, I have far too many unread books in my library which I hope to fix (and not by selling ’em!)

(Already for 2011, I have two books read. Plus there’s a partially read one from 2010 that I should finish up. Didn’t get too many books for Christmas, but that’s OK. I have lots to read as it is!)